Highlights for ESMValTool v2.8.0 release

[remi-kazeroni]

@ESMValGroup/esmvaltool-developmentteam This discussion collects possible highlights for release v2.8.0 ⭐

Please add pull requests that you want to nominate as answers below, afterwards people can vote for their favourite new feature.

The top n (TBA) pull requests will be highlighted in the upcoming release!

Rules:

• Exactly one (group of) PR per answer

• Only already merged PRs are allowed.

  • List of allowed PRs: https://github.com/ESMValGroup/ESMValTool/pulls?page=4&q=is%3Apr+merged%3A%3E2022-10-31+-label%3Acondalock+base%3Amain+sort%3Aupdated-desc
  • First draft of the Changelog: n/a

[bettina-gier]

How far do we want to group stuff? we've got a lot of new IPCC AR6 Ch 3 diagnostics (#2772 , #2986, #2984, #2856), but we also got @katjaweigel's monster #2156 that makes handling IPCC AR5 Ch9 easier. Would you consider these two points or one "IPCC" point for highlights, like "Improved support for IPCC figures"?

[remi-kazeroni]

I would propose to keep IPCC AR6 Ch 3 recipes and IPCC AR5 Ch9 separate. Maybe you could make two posts below this one: one for AR6 recipes, one for AR5? See examples for the Core where we've started to group PRs related to a given topic.

[bettina-gier]

New IPCC AR6 Ch 3 diagnostics (#2772 , #2986, #2984, #2856) from @LisaBock

[bettina-gier]

@katjaweigel's monster #2156, the flato recipe was one of our prides back in the day and semi-broken for a long time, so seeing it get some love and modernization with the split warrants a highlight imo

[LisaBock]

I nominate PR #2750 (by @axel-lauer) which added a lot nice cloud diagnostics from Lauer et al. (2022)

[valeriupredoi]

OK I'm gonna blow my own trumpet and nominate the MERRA cmorizer #2774 since that's cool that was done in collaboration not only amongst us, but close collab with @glpotter - a good example of great work with an external collaborator, and one from NASA no less 🚀

[remi-kazeroni]

You're right, that was a nice achievement indeed! But in fact we already have it listed in our highlights for the previous release: https://docs.esmvaltool.org/en/latest/changelog.html#highlights 😉

[valeriupredoi]

Ah well spotted, and I should have known this already, as previous RM 😆 Eh, no fame and fortune for me then 😁